>I had the exact same experience when applying for a clearance while I was in college
Speaking as someone on the autistic spectrum, this is why the entire clearance process is a joke and has been since I had the misfortune of meeting some of these spooks as a child.
They claim that the one thing that will preclude you is lying, but obviously as posts like these demonstrate, that's not the case.
I still remember going on a date with a woman who was recently divorced... she told me about traveling up and down Baja California for RAND (smoking her brains out along the way).
I've met a ton of these people -- they'd have been precluded from federal employment back in the day just for being divorced... or a woman... or a myriad of other things... but somehow they manage to get these cushy roles and cling to them.
I've since quit doing any job interviews... at all. I got the sense folks were treating them like free consulting sessions, so I'm very purposefully showing up in the comments when something comes up in the news and refusing to "stop posting".
At the end of the day, if you "do a clearance", you're helping perpetuate war crimes, and it's been that way since Iraq, arguably as far back as when the draft ended.
(I got the sense they, the royal they, "the feds" were aggrieved I kept applying to the agencies in my hometown, but hey, I was born here, and I'm not required to ignore antisocial behavior. It's not my fault if it begins to look like you're abusing someone you met as a child -- denying them employment in the private sector then overpolicing their applications in the public service)